Great snakes, Tintin! Elon Musk's stolen your rocket

By Tom Hoggins

12 January 2019 — 10:29am

It may look like something straight out of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century or Tintin's Destination Moon but, according to Elon Musk, the photographs he posted of his latest SpaceX creation are very much real.

Musk, CEO of SpaceX and electric car-maker Tesla, revealed that assembly of the "Starship Hopper" rocket was complete and that images of the shimmering, stainless steel construction were "not a rendering".

Followers on social media were quick to point out the similarity to Tintin's space rocket.

The Tintin comparison is not an accident. In September last year, SpaceX revealed the new design of the "Big Falcon Rocket", now simply know as "Starship", stating, "I love the Tintin rocket design, so I kind of wanted to bias it towards that."

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Musk added: "If in doubt, go with Tintin."

True to his word, the 36.5 metre-tall "hopper" is a tubular, pointy-topped rocket with three tail fins that serve as landing pads.

It is an important building block of the controversial entrepreneur's grand plan to land on and eventually colonise Mars, but this version of the Starship Hopper is not yet ready for space flight.

"This is for suborbital VTOL (vertical take-off and landing) tests," Musk wrote on Twitter. "Orbital version is taller, has thicker skins (won't wrinkle) and a smoothly curving nose section."

The suborbital tests will be similar to SpaceX's Grasshopper program, in that the Starship Hopper will take off and hover 5 kilometres high before being brought back to land.

The craft's "Raptor" engines are expected to be test-fired next month, while Musk hopes it will be ready for its first test flights in March or April.

SpaceX will hope the tests are more successful than its last launch in December, in which a technical glitch saw it botch a ground landing for the first time. Its payload of Christmas lunch for the crew of the International Space Station successfully made it into orbit, however.

The refuellable, three-part Starship Hopper was assembled at a SpaceX factory near the Boca Chica village in south Texas. Musk has been posting excitedly about its construction since before Christmas, telling followers that it is constructed from stainless steel.

Musk said that the material was better than carbon fibre at both extremely hot and cold temperatures and would need less shielding.

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The science-fiction silver is more than just for show, according to Musk, as the exterior will get too hot for paint - which may be disappointing for followers begging him to paint the rocket in red and white to make the Tintin look complete.

The completed craft was also caught on camera by Evelyn Janeidy Arevalo, a rocket and astronomy enthusiast, whose video was retweeted by Musk.

Musk has said an orbital version of the rocket would be ready in June, while a craft using SpaceX's Super Heavy boosters could make a test flight this year.

The aim is to have the first Mars mission take flight by 2022.

SpaceX, a $US25 billion ($35 billion) company, is set to launch its first manned flight in June, taking a crew of NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

It is also set to take Yusaku Maezawa, the Japanese billionaire, and a group of artists to the Moon as early as 2023 in Starship's first passenger flight.